


Battersea Drowning

by TheBookshelfDweller



Series: Pieces of Life [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst galore, Did I Mention Angst?, M/M, Villain Mary, now with smut, reversed battersea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:49:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBookshelfDweller/pseuds/TheBookshelfDweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They drink and drink until they don't feel thirst anymore, but it's always there. It's always there. And they eat until they fool themselves into thinking they are sated, but there's no chasing away the hunger and they are the ever-starving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a post made by my friend on Tumblr :)

 

* * *

The Tube is a god damn nightmare during rush hour. The carriages are packed, and everything is moving too slowly for John's taste. The world itself moves too slowly if one is trying to tail Sherlock Holmes, as John just happens to be.

Baker Street these days is a special kind of hell. John is angry, all the time, and Sherlock is still so pale, as if the bleeding never stopped, and they are like two horribly untalented acrobats trying to do an act on a tight rope with no safety net below them and they're butchering it, as out of tune as they can be. Mrs Hudson tip-toes around them as if they're both dying, and John is at the end of his tether, but it's not her fault so he tries not to let it show. Sherlock put back his chair, so on the days when he comes around, John sits in it and sometimes it almost feels like the good old days. Most of the time it doesn't. Most of the time he goes about his day and manages not to say something cruel and hurtful. The times when he fails, Sherlock suffers through them in silence, never talking back, and John wants to shake him. To be honest, John wants to shake him a good half of the time. Because of all the horrible things he could have done to him, Sherlock decided to be _considerate_.

When John appeared on his doorstep the morning after his and Mary's _little domestic,_ Sherlock just stepped aside and let him through. Thank God he didn't try to help and carry John's bags. John is certain he would have punched him if he had. And then there were clean sheets on John's bed, and his favourite beer in the fridge and Sherlock never made noise and never stole John's laptop and never even complained about being bored. He wished John good morning and made sure the milk hadn't gone off. Sometimes, John would catch Sherlock looking at him in a way that frightened him, because what if he'd been wrong all along? His whole life in the last few years was built on the premise of Sherlock being Sherlock, and now Sherlock was not being himself. Or he was this all along, and John just never noticed. And it's some sort of fucked up, isn't it, that John Watson is more afraid that he never really knew Sherlock Holmes than he is worried that his marriage is a lie.

And when Sherlock read the USB stick and said ' _you have to go back to her, John'_ and John threw the crystal ashtray Sherlock stole for him from Buckingham Palace into the wall, Sherlock never said a word. He barely even flinched, then went into the bathroom and fixed the cuts on John's hands from picking up the shards. John's hands bled and bled and Sherlock looked more pained than John, and for a cruel moment John though ' _good'_. And then the moment passed and he wished that Sherlock just said something obnoxious or thoughtless or brilliant, just once. But Sherlock didn't. He just made tea and asked John if his hands hurt and went to bed.

And when John moved back out after Christmas and the whole Magnussen fiasco, Sherlock never said a word of protest, never tried to bargain or blackmail or insult John into staying. John can't decide if it was a relief or a disappointment. All he knows is that, if Sherlock had tried even a bit, John would have yielded. But Sherlock didn't, so John didn't, and they left their cold hell untouched, safe so that John can stumble right back into it a few times a week under the pretence of keeping up with an old friend.

But even those instances, John could have survived. In the end, he did survive – survived the hollowness of it all, and Sherlock's bloody idiotic decision to be considerate. And then Sherlock took it too far, because Sherlock always takes it too far, and John would have been relieved if he weren't so wrecked. Because Sherlock was being sent to his death (even though they both played along with the charades of not knowing this), and instead of doing the selfish thing, Sherlock made a joke and spared John's heart, and took it with him to the plane all the same. And then the plane turned around and now they're here, stuck in limbo.

So, John comes to Baker Street three times a week. Mrs Hudson hovers and worries, John is angry, and Sherlock is fading. It's a god damn mess. John feels like a refugee, like a homeless person. Just with better clothes. He sits in his chair and it almost never feels like the good old days any more, and sometimes he drinks.

John drinks and drinks, and it's not always water and tea, more days than not now it's fire down his throat and, Christ, he understands Harry more and more these days. He hates it. Sherlock eats more than he ever used when John was there, but it seems like the three-days-old leftovers taste exactly the same as freshly-made minced pies Mrs. Hudson bakes for him, and if he just bit aspirin pills, or the inside of his mouth, it would probably make no difference what so ever.

They drink and drink until they don't feel thirst anymore, but it's always there. It's always there. And they eat until they fool themselves into thinking they are sated, but there's no chasing away the hunger and they are the ever-starving.

So yes, Baker Street is hell, but it's better than John's Islington flat with its beige wallpaper and its boring address and John's boring life and John's lying wife. And still, every night, John goes back. Because Sherlock asked him to. Because Sherlock has a plan. Because Sherlock always has a plan. But John's done with not being in on it. Which places him in the over-crowded train on the Bakerloo line, southbound.

Mary said she has the last check-up scheduled but that he doesn't have to come if he already has plans. Sherlock said he had some paperwork waiting for him at the Yard and that John doesn't have to come if he already has plans. They both used to be better liars, so either they're slipping up or John's gotten better at reading them. Either way, he left 221B minutes before Sherlock, texted Mycroft and had the address within five minutes of stepping out of the flat.

The Roland Kerr Further Education College.

This time he doesn't run down the hallways. There is no poison pills, no serial killers to shoot. It's a Saturday, so the College is empty, and John's shoes makes almost no noise on the polished floors. He checks door after door until he finds them.

The room looks familiar but odd from this new angle. Sherlock is standing by one of the windows, and John can't quite make out his face. Mary is standing in front of him, mostly angled away from the door. John leans against the wall, making sure to stay out of sight. In the quiet of the empty building, voices carry. John doesn't need to see them in order to hear them.

No handgun this time. In his pocket no back-up ammo. Just a mobile, switched to silent. He's learning on Sherlock's mistake. One never knows when an unexpected call might come. Or an unexpected text. One never knows when an echo of an echo will bring a heart to a stop, just as it's being dissected by the last person who should be anywhere near it.

_'Ah'_

He will never forget that sound, John knows. Funny, that he should remember it as one of the least arousing things in the world, given its innate eroticism. But it's not erotic. It never was. It was a warning, a pea under a twenty downy mattresses and twenty feather-beds, a pebble in the shoe. It was John Watson's sanity being played like a fiddle. It was his secret laid out in front of him and the Woman in the cold, indifferent light of an abandoned power station, and it was the utter collapse of his world, echoing in the empty hallways alongside familiar footsteps. He was never meant to hear it. Hear that silence.

' _We're not a couple.'_

' _Yes you are.'_

Yes they were. Christ, they were. And they were fucking cowards, too. John knows he was, and Sherlock...well, who ever knows about Sherlock. John certainly didn't, not back then. Now...now he relies on wilful ignorance. It's a combat technique, a survival method.

So this is what it must have been like, being on the other end of it all. John didn't enjoy being on his end the first time. He can't decide if this time it's worse. Yes, it probably is. He can't tell. He'll make up his mind later. Right now, Sherlock's voice rings through the silence.

“What is your connection to Jim Moriarty?”

Inside the classroom, Sherlock faces Mary. She's nine months pregnant, and in her red coat she looks ridiculously like a tomato. The colour is vile, screaming at his eyes. It's such a random thought that Sherlock scoffs at himself. He needs to up his game.

“Why does it matter?”, Mary shoots back.

“Because if he's back he is wont to _revive_ that connection. So, I need to know if you are in danger.”

“I'm touched.”

The sarcasm doesn't sting, but the reminder of his own foolishness does and Sherlock wonders once more if he would have seen it all sooner were it not for sentiment. He doesn't reply. He's too tired for comebacks, and there's too much work to be done. This place isn't making it easier, though. The first shot, the first save. A pill, a cabby, and a bored maniac trying too hard to prove to himself and the world that he is too smart to care. And then an army doctor with a limp, a steady hand, and a better grasp on Sherlock's soul than Sherlock's ever had over it, shooting to save Sherlock's life. Now Sherlock is shooting to save John's, words instead of bullets, but oh how the words hurt, because he's shooting at his own heart, but his heart is used to it by now and it's for John. It's for John. It's not symbolism, Sherlock tells himself and tastes his own lies. It's just his usual brand of drama.

“Why does it matter so much?”, Mary asks, and oh, now she's just getting on his nerves. They don't have time to play games.

“I highly doubt that a person of your calibre should need explaining on why it matters that a criminal mastermind might have some unfinished business with you”, Sherlock says. Mary sighs.

“Fibbing, Sherlock. Once again, I'm not John. I can tell when you fib.”

“You're right. You're not John.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Mary sounds genuinely curious this time, but it doesn't change the fact that she already knows the answer. And Sherlock knows she knows.

“You know why.”

“Yes”, she says, tilting her head in thought. “Yes, I do. Sherlock, despite what you may think we're not so different, you and I. I would kill for him, and so would you.”

“Well, to be precise, you would kill for him, and _I did_. You tried, so I guess that counts, too.”

“Good to see you kept your sense of humour.”

“I've been told it makes people uneasy.”

“People are so easily unnerved.”

“Yes, they are”, Sherlock says. “Especially when they _care_. Which is why I'll ask you again – what is your connection to Moriarty?”

“No, you still didn't answer my question. Why does it matter? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. It's only fair.”

No, it's not. Nothing about this is fair. But if Sherlock's anything, he's a quick study, and he's learnt that being stubborn only pays off to an extent. With Mary, he knows he must give more.

“John cares”, he says, words like chalk on his tongue. “About you. John cares about you, and that means that nothing can happen to you.”

“That's a very roundabout way of saying the truth.”

“Bit ironic, coming from you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Your turn.”

Mary sighs again, and pulls up a chair, grunting as she lowers herself into the seat.

“There is no connection. Not any more. I was a hired gun for a long time, worked for a lot of people. Moriarty was one of them, on several occasions.”

“Any work of your I might have seen?”

“I highly doubt it.”

“Would you tell me if it were otherwise?”

Mary smiles. Clever Sherlock. Too clever for his own good, most of the time. “I highly doubt it.”

“I'm trying to protect you, Mary.”

“I never asked for your protection. I can protect myself.”

“Can you protect John?” That gives her a pause and Sherlock's eyes flash. He knows he's just trumped all her cards. It doesn't feel much like wining, tough.

“Low punch, Sherlock.”

“A relevant one, nonetheless.”

Mary fidgets, but her eyes remain steadily on her companion.

“I'll tell you what you need to know. But not here. Come by the flat on Wednesday. John's at the clinic from eight till two. You can stay for lunch.”

Sherlock nods, and turns to leave, but Mary stops him.

“Just out of curiosity – what did you tell him? That day on the tarmac, what did you tell John?”

Oh, he should have walked faster.

“He didn't tell you?” he asks, one glove still on his hand, the other handing out of his pocket.

Mary shruggs. “I never asked.”

“So why ask now?”

“Because I can't guess.”

Fair enough reason. The Detective in Sherlock approves of such practicality. The human in Sherlock approves of nothing about this.

“Lies”, he says and dear lord, he doesn't let his voice break. “I told him lies.”

“That wasn't very nice of you.”

“I'm not a very nice person.”

“John never seemed to mind that.”

Speaking of low punches. Mary eyes him with a closed-off expression, but Sherlock knows she's picking at his defences. He pried, and now she's paying back the favour.

“Maybe he should have”, he says, and just then, he believes it.

“We both know that was never going to happen.”

“Yes, well. We all have lapses of judgement.”

“And was he yours, then?”

There it is. Sherlock's walked right into it. He really must stop underestimating Mary, especially when she is cornered. In another life, Sherlock supposes she would have made an admirable opponent – if the Game was different, if the stakes were lower. If he were a different man. If John wasn't who he was. If Sherlock didn't love him as much. He doesn't answer, but it seems the question was mostly rhetorical, anyway.

“Do you know why you were never a threat, Sherlock?”, Mary goes on. “Because John, once he's convinced himself of something, is very good of not seeing anything that might make him question his belief. I think he is horrified of being wrong, even more than you are, about certain things. I love John. I loved my life with him. And I liked you, because you made him happy. And because John didn't want to see what I saw, I knew I was safe. Although, I do think he saw it, eventually. At the wedding, that is. Even he couldn't ignore it anymore. You were being really obvious by then, Sherlock. But even then, you weren't a threat. In fact, you were an ally. Because then I knew for certain two things: one, that you would do anything to keep John safe, and two, that you were never going to tell him.”

“Tell him what?”, Sherlock asks, because he's a masochist, and because a small part of him still screams that the charade must be kept in place. As if it wasn't always bound to fail. As if they both don't know the answer already.

“You love him.”

He does. And that's the problem. The first problem. The final problem. And for once in his life, Sherlock doesn't have a solution.

So he doesn't say anything. His silence is a confirmation and he knows it, but what is he supposed to do? Deny it? He's rather sure he couldn't physically bring himself to do so.

He's never denied it. Silence was always enough for people to fill it with their assumptions. And John was always loud enough for the both of them.

There are no assumptions now. Just the truth, Mary, and Sherlock. And this is the ugly underbelly, their shadows laughing at them because maybe they are the ones following, clinging, instead of the other way around, just light impressions of darker beings, illusions born out of tricks of light.

John is a conductor of light. Sherlock loves him. But what claim could a shadow ever have?

 

* * *

_'You love him.'_

The words spill under the door and eat through the floor around John's feet, through his shoes, his skin, into his blood. He waits for the denial, the comeback, the outwitting-god bit.

It never comes.

_'He never replies.'_

_'No, Sherlock always replies – to everything. He’s Mr Punchline. He will outlive God trying to have the last word.'_

_'Does that make me special?'_

_'I don't know...maybe'_

Oh, God. The silences. How did John never notice the silences before. They were always there, now that he looks back. Angelo's, that very first night. Mrs Hudson. Baskerville. A thousand random strangers, clients. Half the Yard, probably.

And all the silences.

Jesus, Sherlock. Deny it. Deny. It. But don't. Please don't.

Here's the punchline. The best part. The worst part: John hoped. For months, years, he hoped. And the he shoved the hope in some attic-room in the back of his mind because a heart can only hope so much before it starts to turn sour. And now, it's too late, and everything is a mess, and Sherlock loves him but the first time John hears the words they come out of his wife's mouth. That's one twisted cosmic joke, if John's ever seen any. And no one's laughing. It's not funny. It's the opposite of funny.

' _There's something I've always meant to say, but never have'_

The silences. The fucking silences.

Forgetting where he is, John slams a fist against the wall. The last thing he sees before storming out is Sherlock's pale, stricken face staring at him through the round window in the door.

' _I think it could work'_

The words haunt him. Not because they were never serious, but because they were never a joke to begin with.

I think it could work. Y _eah? Well, so did I, Sherlock_ , John thinks. _Once, so did I._

He's out of the corridor before anyone can even call his name. He doesn't know where he's going. Where do homeless people go?

 

* * *

_John._

_No. No no no no. No._

The familiar footsteps start to fade and Mary makes a move towards the door, but Sherlock stops her.

“I don't think so”, he says. “Do you?”

Mary smirks, but it's an ugly expression, all shadows and wrong lines around her pale eyes. “I guess not. How much do you think he heard?”

She's probably taunting him, but Sherlock can't bring himself to care. All in him seems to have fallen into a numb sleep. Because John knows now, and he wasn't supposed to find out. Not like this. Maybe not ever.

“Too much, in any case”, he says, because even though his insides are rubble, Sherlock is still a world-class actor when the occasion calls for it. He can keep a straight face.

“Now what?”

“Now nothing. Now you go to your check up and then you go home, to John.”

“So we keep on pretending. Why?”

“Because that's how this works now, Mary.”

“And what about you?”

“I go back home, too.” He doesn't tell her that he no longer knows where that is, but he doesn't have to. It's their curse – they know so much they can't even lie properly.

Irrelevant. John knows.

“Yes, let's go with that”, Mary says, and it's like a really bad play. Sherlock's forgetting his lines, missing all his cues. The stage is crumbling and the costumes don't fit. “See you on Wednesday, Sherlock.”

She leaves, and Sherlock is left staring out the window. He knows when he's been beaten. Irene would be proud. He watches the read coat disappear around the corner and all he can think is ' _we're not the same, Mary. You're right when you say we'd both kill for him. But the difference is that I would die for him, too'_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut ahoy! (Because I couldn't just let them stay unhappy, could I now?)

 

* * *

Sherlock walks back to Baker Street. It's half way across London, but he still arrives too soon. Whatever that means. Cold, his hands don't fumble with the lock, but he doesn't really feel them either. He's not panicking. Panic is a fight-or-flight reflex. It comes in moments still laden with hope. This isn't such a moment. This is the aftermath, with no one left to fight and nowhere to flee.

John is there. Of course he is. Even now, with all this, Sherlock can't find it in himself to wish he was not. John in Baker Street is how things should be. Preferably happy, and not looking the way he looks now - tormented, a painted shadow sitting on the stairs.

The silence weighs a ton. Sherlock can hear the house creaking under its weight. Or maybe that's just his bones. He walks slowly towards where John sits and leans against the landing wall.

"How long?", John asks. Sherlock doesn't answer, because John doesn't really want to know. He doesn't. He thinks he does, because he's angry and John does rash things - asks rash questions - when he's angry. Sherlock knows this. He knows John. And John is only asking because he knows the answer will be a betrayal. It like the liquor John drinks, like the tasteless junk Sherlock eats - words to make them feel ill, the poison they stuff their bodies full of because they can, because they've forgotten what it is like when it doesn't hurt.

"How long, Sherlock?"

"Long enough."

"That's not an answer."

Technically, it is. Technically, Sherlock's work should have come first. Technically, John should have been happily married. Technically, they're not really good people anymore.

"No", Sherlock says, because 'technically' was always just an excuse, and now he has none. It's not an answer, and the work hasn't come first in a while now, not even close, and John has long forgotten happiness, buried it three years ago, and they might not be good people, but John is still the best and the wisest man.

"What was that, Sherlock? What in the blood hell was that?"

John stands up, a burst of movement, comes to stand in front of Sherlock, just a few inches too close. Not close enough. Never close enough. Sherlock can feel John's breath on his face.

"You weren't supposed to be there", he says.

"Yeah, I've gathered as much."

"I had to know John. About Mary. I had to know."

"That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it."

John's eyes are daring him. _Say it_ . Why? Because _she_ said it first. Which 'she', Sherlock doesn't even know. Irene. Mary. Does is matter? Lovely parallel, that - cruel women that outed them, smarter women, sharp women. Braver, in any case, than either one of them ever was. All he knows is that they've never said it themselves, and it's wrong.

John's eyes are daring Sherlock to say it, but it's the dare of the desperate. ' _Say it, so I might survive it. Say it, quickly. Fast deaths are better than slow ones_ ', John's eyes plead, but Sherlock can't.

Of course he can't. Because the plane is not taking off this time. Because it's not now or never this time, but now, now, now, and well, the silences worked well enough for them so far. (Except that they have not. Dear lord, the silences were hazardous.) Christ, they couldn't say it while held at gunpoint. Why should they be able to do so now? Nothing's changed, after all. Except everything has, of course. The status quo lies crushed beneath their feet, and every surface is a mirror, forcing them to look at each other.

"Is this a punishment?", Sherlock asks. John's fists are white-knuckled, tight.

"Maybe", he answers, low, rasping, and far, far too close. His eyes flick down to Sherlock's lips. "I don't know. Maybe", John repeats and it's the watershed.

He pushes in, feels Sherlock's lips part on a gasp beneath his. It's as broken as it should be, just right in all its wrongness. Reality is never the way fiction paints it. There's no music, no sudden unknotting of something tight in John's chest. He's still angry. It's not bliss. It's Sherlock's cold face under his hands and the sharp sounds of their breathing bouncing off the wall where once they leaned together, laughing. It's their first, but really it's just an angry snarl of a kiss. A press of lips deemed too useless for talking. But Sherlock kisses back, because it's not like them to be sensible.  
And this is them, at their lowest, their basest, crawling in the slums of the soul, scaling each other's walls with ruthless savagery. Hiding in plain sight, hiding from each other even though they can both see.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock", John rasps when they part, and Sherlock agrees, mutely. Bloody hell is a pretty accurate description.

"This doesn't feel like punishment", he says.

"What does punishment feel like, then?" John breathes out. Sherlock meets his eyes - dark, angry, and Sherlock's favourite pair - and knows the truth is rotten. He also knows John won't have anything less than just that. What does punishment feel like? Lost time, wasted chances, hand-written waltzes, and...

"Dance lessons behind closed curtains."

Sherlock doesn't mean for it be cruel, but it's cruel nonetheless. He watches something in John's eyes shatter, guilt or pain or regret, one worse than the other, and it hurts more than getting shot. Sherlock can vouch for the accuracy of that comparison now.

John moves to pull away, and Sherlock's too slow to catch him. He backs away a step, hands on his hips, head hung low. There's something fragile about the stance, something defeted, and fear washes over Sherlock, cold and slick.

'Don't let it be regret', he begs - whom, he does not know, the great void perhaps. He couldn't stand John's regret. Because it was not a mistake. They are not a mistake. He'll take the punishment, the anger, the hurt. But he cannot be a regret. So he prays to a concept he doesn't even believe in, because that's what you do when there's nothing else left to be done. Blind faith, the refuge of the helpless.

"And this?", John asks, looking up again. His face is drawn, but his voice is soft, like an apology, like a peace offering. Like Sherlock's name in his mouth, like 'I don't mind', like his hand on Sherlock knee. Like a chance. "What does this feel like?"

Sherlock kisses him then, feeds the word 'luck' into his mouth. Luck and sin and mess. Glorious. ' _Us_ ', Sherlock wants to say, ' _it feels like us_ '. It feels right, it really does. Because John is kissing back.  
It's no mere press of lips this time. Sherlock's hands scrabble for purchase as he fists them in the back of John's shirt. He hits the wall again, John's legs tangling with his. John kisses him with all the words he couldn't say, and Sherlock kisses back with all his stupid silences, breathing though his nose, too loudly, a bit desperately. The world hardly fades away, but it's an infinitely better place, Sherlock decides, when John's lips keep meeting his, when John's hand tangles in his hair, cradles the nape of his neck. It's a realisation Sherlock's been aware for quite some time now - the world is a better place for having John Watson in it.

He finds John's face, pulls him in. Warmth spills between their mouths - tongues and breath and their wretched inhibitions. They swallow them down, drink them in. It's how they got here. It's what made them. They're beginning, out of an almost-dead end.

John smells like smog and rain and the air freshener Mary uses in their flat. He kisses Sherlock in small bursts of affection, softly forceful lips, and then in sweeping breaths of yearning, open-mouthed and surrendering. It's familiar when it should be new, far too easy for a first.  
They stumble, trying to press closer. The wallpaper scratches at Sherlock's back, whispers caution - a warning that goes ignored. When they finally part for air, John's eyes are closed, his eyelids pale and delicate. Sherlock can see the thin blood vessels there. He wants to kiss them, wants to follow the trail of John's eyelashes back down to his mouth.

"John..."

The lashes flutter and lift. The river-bottom blue of John's eyes is muddied, dark, lovely. If there's a question there, it goes unvoiced, but not unanswered. Yes. Of course, yes. If John were the current, Sherlock would stop swimming, let himself be pulled under. That, for him, would not be a hardship.

A hand reaches up to Sherlock's cheek, slow, hesitant when it has no reason to be. A soldier's hand, a doctor's, but also neither of those things just then. A lover's hand. Almost. Sherlock tilts his head, meets John's palm, turns his face to press a kiss to the centre of it.

_Yes. Always yes._   

They're both breathing fast still, hearts beating louder, making up for silent mouths. Sherlock covers John's hand with his, takes it, and pushes off the wall. Steps, then the den, then the corridor to his room - they're not drawing a map, because they don't need one. They wouldn't know how to read it. This is uncharted territory. No breadcrumbs to be left - they won't be coming back. Not from this.

It's not slow. They walk as they always do, do not linger. It's not urgent either, not until they're in Sherlock's room and the simple privacy of it surrounds them. Sherlock turns back to John and this time the kiss comes like an agreement, a truce, mutual and shared much in the same way their lives had been. The way they might be again. 

"For how long?", John asks again, but this time Sherlock doesn't know if he means 'f _or how long have you?_ ' or ' _for how long will you_?', so he answers the latter, because that's the more important question.

"Always." He said as much already. _Always you._  

It's a silly answer, imprecise and vague, romantic, but John doesn't seem to mind. But his eyes are still troubled, for some reason Sherlock can't discern. Sherlock wants to wipe it away, this needless worry.

"Do you want this?", John asks. Sherlock would think it a joke, if it were not for John's eyes. How can he still doubt? Doesn't he know that Sherlock barely even gets a say in this? It's hardly a choice when his heart decided to give itself away, but whatever autonomy Sherlock still has he hopes is convincing enough.

"Yes", he says. "Do you?"

"Yes."

Was it always this simple? Maybe. Maybe it was never simple. Maybe it was a one-word answer five years in the making. Maybe they had to live and die and live again to learn it. Or maybe they were just fools. It's immaterial now. 

"Yes", John says again, a whisper against Sherlock's mouth this time. ' _God, yes_ '. He kisses Sherlock's lips, then the corner of his mouth. His jaw, his neck, the hollow at the base of his throat, almost reverent, a civilised savage, learning how to be polite in hunger. Because it's not just simple hunger. Love is never like that. Even it they don't call it that. Even if they don't call it anything at all yet.

"It's not a punishment", John whispers into Sherlock's neck, hands holding fast. It's broken and raw and Sherlock understands.

"I know", Sherlock says. "I know it isn't."

He lets John strip him, lets him take down layer after layer. It's by far the bravest act of Sherlock Holmes' life. Because he survived a bullet, but he knows he will not survive John Watson. He will live and love and last as long as John will too, and then he will cease to be, because what life could there be afterwards?

John lets him do the same. They take turns, hands gentle and a little clumsy, but growing bolder with impatience. A shirt for a jacket, a vest of a shirt, on and on until they're naked and courageous for it. They touch each other's scars, but do not linger. Yes, they are breakable and mortal, perishable goods. Yes, they've both nearly died. Yes, they survived and here are the testaments. But this is not about that. Their mortality can wait. There will be time to pay tribute to the markings of their frailty and their endurance. Later.

Right now, they're learning to speak. 

Still standing, Sherlock walks into John's arms, finds his lips, presses their chests together. It's almost sweet, even if it cannot be innocent. They're too far gone for that. They kiss and kiss, faces creased almost as if they're in pain. It tastes like the wine in John's hands they never got to drink that distant day years ago.

At some point or another, they start walking towards the bed on tangled legs. Sherlock lands on his back, and John follows, crawling up until he is hovering above him. They're both half-hard already, warmed by the constant touch of their bodies, high on the feeling of countless small points where their skin rubs together. They're safe, Sherlock knows. John's last mandatory check-up came back clean, and Mycroft had Sherlock tested right after the drug den stint.

Soon, kisses turn into ragged breathing, and hands roam lower, from faces and hair to necks, chests, hips. They're molten light of an old, abandoned power station, combusting, trapped in skin and beautiful humanness of it all. Sherlock can barely breathe. His hips buck up, his cock rubbing against the crease of John's hip, and he feels John's breath catching where he's marking Sherlock's neck , his own hardness pressing against Sherlock's belly.

A low whine escapes Sherlock's throat. John lifts his head, takes in Sherlock's face.

"Show me", he says, so Sherlock does. He takes John's hand where it's clutched in his against the sheets and guides it down. He wraps their joint hands around his cock and strokes, slow and light at first. John watches and then leans down again, kissing his way into Sherlock's mouth, the movement of his hand is the constant swell and pull of the Thames, pulsing. Sherlock is drowning, being dragged into the deep. And it's alright. It's perfect.

He untangles his hand from John's and reaches between John's legs. He feels John's rhythm falter as he takes him in hand, feels John's moan deep in the very core of himself. They push into each other, swelling and sliding like the tide, finding each other's rhythm. This time, the silence is different. It's not silent at all - there's the sound of their breathing, their moans and gasps, half-whispered please and instructions, sounds that might be words in some primordial, visceral language pulled from deep within them. They're speaking with their hands and eyes and bodies, sign language on the tips of their fingers and the set of their brows, Morse code in the rhythm of their hearts and hands, Braille in the way Sherlock's skin prickles.

It's no longer desperately unspoken, but their voices still catch on the words that now linger somewhere in-between.

' _Say it',_ John's eyes say. ' _Say it_ ', Sherlock's heart yearns. They should. They really should.

They can't. Almost, but not yet.

Sherlock twists, flips them over so that they're lying side-by-side, hands still stroking. He buries his head in John's neck, kisses and licks, closes his eyes and feels John's breathing quickening. John's hand on his cock tightens, thumb sweeping over the head, and all air leaves Sherlock's lungs. The sweat on John's skin tastes like tears.

Letting go, Sherlock clambers out of John's arms, kisses down his chest, his belly, and lower yet. John watches him with bottomless eyes, turning completely on his back now. 

"Christ, Sherlock..." he breathes out. It would be blasphemous if it were not this. Them. 

Sherlock takes him in his mouth, and it tastes bitter and sharp, but the way John's muscles quiver and his lips part looks like the sky breaking into colour after a storm and it's worth it. It's messy, far from skilled, but it's a form of worship all the same. Sherlock licks and sucks, and John's hands fist the sheets, crumple the whiteness. Even his breaths are given a voice now, each coming out as a low moan.

"Sherlock, please...", he begins, and Sherlock doesn't know what he is supposed to give, but then John's hand catches his, draws him up, his cock slipping from Sherlock's mouth as he turns them so they lie side by side once more. 

"Come here."

' _Say it_ ', everything in them speaks. John takes his face in his hands, lays kisses from Sherlock's temple to his lips. Their legs tangle again, their cocks rubbing together. Never letting go of Sherlock's hand, John kisses his knuckles and then reaches between their bodies. They take hold of their cocks, together, hips moving in time with their hands, mouths meeting and noses bumping. 

They keep their eyes open, keep looking with all the bravery of the doomed. Or the rescued. There's warmth, and history, and home in those eyes. More importantly, there's a future.

  
It's the simple things that undo them, of course. A kiss. A twist of hand. The calmness in John's eyes that looks like a smile. The hitch in Sherlock's voice that sounds like devotion.

"John...", Sherlock gasps, calls out, falling out of himself, or maybe in, and John is there to catch him, his lips pressing in, one hand stroking Sherlock through his climax while the other smooths back his sweat-slick hair. He follows soon after, shaking himself apart against Sherlock's body, beautiful and flawed and worn out. 

They don't move, despite the mess, clinging to each other. The air is stuffy, smelling of sex, and there's sweat on their skin. It's Sherlock who speaks first, slips the words into the space between their bodies.

"I always meant to say it..."

_The stuff you wanted to say, but didn't say it. Say it now._

"I love you", John interrupts. Because he's been waiting longer, or maybe because it was his turn to be brave. It doesn't matter. _Say it. Say it. Say it. Now_. "I love you."

"Yes", Sherlock whispers, and it's not ' _I know_ ', but an answer, a relief, as if John finally found the very words Sherlock wanted to give him. It's like a foreign language finally understood. It's the silence finally filled.

"Yes", Sherlock sighs against John's lips, and means ' _I love you too_ '.

 

 


End file.
